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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24141034">Scales</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceWall/pseuds/SpaceWall'>SpaceWall</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>To Take Another Course [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(it takes him 7 years to figure out why), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Child Abuse, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Gryffindor Severus Snape, M/M, Male Friendship, Male-Female Friendship, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Multi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 18:09:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>17,405</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24141034</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceWall/pseuds/SpaceWall</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes him seven years, but Severus does eventually learn to stop being alone. All of them do.</p><p>--</p><p>Slytherin would suit you best, I think. You have great ambition. The people you meet there might help you achieve it. Nothing could stand in your way.</p><p>I want to be with my friend.</p><p>Loyalty is a Hufflepuff trait. If you went there, she would not be so far away as all that. </p><p>I want to be with my friend. </p><p>Well, you are a stubborn one. In that case, it had better be, </p><p>“Gryffindor!”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James Potter/Lily Evans Potter/Severus Snape, James Potter/Severus Snape, Lily Evans Potter/Severus Snape, Regulus Black &amp; Severus Snape, Remus Lupin &amp; Severus Snape, Sirius Black &amp; Severus Snape, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>To Take Another Course [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1945066</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>148</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>882</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Finished Goodies</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Years 1-5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>CW/TW: canonical child abuse. In this case mostly just Severus’s negligent shitty parents, and Sirius+Regulus’s off-screen shitty parents. </p><p>Also, I stole the idea of Kingsley being the fifth roommate from a reddit thread so credit where that’s due.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Evans, Lily” was sitting at the Gryffindor table, shoved between the scandal-causing “Black, Sirius” and “Lupin, Remus”. She didn’t look unhappy, exactly, but she didn’t look happy either.</p><p>The Ravenclaws were all applauding at the placement of “Michaels, Denise”</p><p>Severus uncrossed his arms and tried to stand up straight. Someone tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey,” said the boy, who had brown skin, glasses, and black hair that went everywhere, “you know Evans, right? I saw you talking to her earlier.”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>He nodded seriously. “So, where’s she from? What does she like?”</p><p>“None of your business.”</p><p>Severus enjoyed a few seconds of blessed silence, trying not to panic in the middle of the Great Hall before someone tapped on his shoulder again. Slowly, the crowd around him was vanishing until Severus stood almost at the front of the group of first years, so when he whirled around to look at who’d tapped him, he wasn’t surprised to see it was the same boy.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>He whispered loudly, “I think she’s waving at you, not me.”</p><p>And indeed she was. When Severus raised his hand, Lily gave him two thumbs-up. </p><p>The boy said, “hey, is she a muggleborn? Are you a muggleborn too?”</p><p>Oh, great. “Shut up.”</p><p>“Not that I mind,” the boy said, helpfully, “I’m not like those Slytherin jerks that think blood purity’s the be all end all. My name’s James Potter, and–”</p><p>He shut up as “Pettigrew, Peter” pushed past them. </p><p>“Not all Slytherins are like that.”</p><p>Potter rolled his eyes. “Don’t be like that. You know enough of them are to matter. My mum says it doesn’t matter what house I’m in, but I wouldn’t be friends with a Slytherin ever. They’d just call me a blood traitor and her a you-know-what and you a – halfblood, right? You get to be the worst of both in their eyes.”</p><p>“Shut up!”</p><p>Pettigrew was shaping up to be a hat stall. </p><p>A boy with a fat nose and ruddy cheeks said, “got your eyes on a mudblood already, blood traitor?” He’d proved Potter’s point very well.</p><p>Potter looked towards the high table, stepped behind Severus so they couldn’t see him, and kicked the boy hard in the knee. He made a pained noise.</p><p>The entire room turned to look at them. “Pettigrew, Peter” had taken a place at the Slytherin table while they were distracted, and Professor McGonagall called, “Potter, James.” </p><p>He was a Gryffindor, obviously, and ended up sitting across from Black, Lupin and Lily. </p><p>“Reid, Padraig.” </p><p>Lily still wasn’t looking at Potter, even though he was right across from her. She’d turned around backwards on her bench so she could look at Severus. Feeling oddly emboldened by her rejection of Potter, he waved, properly. </p><p>“Shacklebolt, Kingsley.” </p><p>“What, you interested in the mudblood too, Snape?” </p><p>Oh, no. He was not being a worse friend to Lily than James bloody Potter. Without looking behind him, he elbowed the taller boy in the stomach.</p><p>“Snape, Severus.” </p><p>He’d never had so many eyes on him before. Lily yelled, “go Sev!” </p><p>Potter, seemingly inclined to impress her, started cheering too. “Hit him harder next time, Snape!”</p><p>The professor paused before putting the hat on his head. “Physical violence is not encouraged at Hogwarts, Mr. Snape.”</p><p>If Potter could get away with this, so could he. “I don’t know what he’s talking about, Professor.”</p><p>She shook her head, and dropped the hat. It fell down over his eyes </p><p><em> Hmm, </em>a voice in his head said, <em>I can see many paths for you, Severus Snape </em></p><p>Severus fixed his eyes on the Gryffindor table. <em>I want to be with my friend. </em></p><p>
  <em>Slytherin would suit you best, I think. You have great ambition. The people you meet there might help you achieve it. Nothing could stand in your way.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I want to be with my friend.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Loyalty is a Hufflepuff trait. If you went there, she would not be so far away as all that. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>I want to be with my friend. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Well, you are a stubborn one. In that case, it had better be, </em>
</p><p>“Gryffindor!”</p><p>Numb with the severity of what he’d done, Severus stumbled to his feet. He’d thrown the next seven years of his life away, just like that. </p><p>“Mr. Snape,” McGonagall said, too softly for the rest of the room to hear, “as your head of house, I am not giving you a detention. But you will come to my office, tomorrow after dinner, to have a discussion about effective problem solving. Consider it a warning.”</p><p>Still numb, Severus managed to make his way over to the wildly cheering Gryffindor’s. Lily had shoved Black all the way ‘round to the other side of the table with Potter so Severus would be able to sit beside her. </p><p>Potter gave him a high-five across the table. “Absolutely brilliant, Snape! You just snapped. Snaped. Ha!”</p><p>He was still a jerk, then. And now Severus was going to spend seven years living with him because he was insane. </p><p>“I got a meeting with Professor McGonagall out of it.”</p><p>“Me too,” Potter said, still cheerful. “Guess I’ll see you there.”</p><p>“I wouldn’t worry about it,” one of the older boys said. “Potter told us what littlest-Warrington said. McGonagall won’t be so stuck up about it once she hears. She doesn’t have time for blood prejudice.”</p><p>Lily squeezed his hand under the table. “That was stupid, Sev. But also pretty brave.”</p><p>Well, he could work with that.</p><p>--</p><p>In the end, only Severus and Black stayed for Christmas, out of the first year Gryffindors. It wasn’t much of a surprise. Potter’s family was going on a holiday to Greece, Lupin’s mother was perennially sick, and Lily missed her family, even her horrid sister. </p><p>Severus didn’t mind, although he missed Lily fiercely, from the very minute he hugged her goodbye. At least he wasn’t at home. That alone made it a better Christmas break than it would have been if he’d gone. </p><p>He spent the afternoon in the library, finishing a potions essay. Slughorn, he was quickly realizing, was an idiot. It was one of the first times he’d genuinely been pleased to be a Gryffindor for a reason that had nothing to do with Lily. McGonagall was anything but an idiot, even if Transfiguration wasn’t his favourite subject, and she was always willing to answer questions for a curious Gryffindor. Slughorn had all the intellectual curiosity of the slug he was named for.</p><p>After telling the password to the portrait of the Fat Lady, he walked into the common room to find the remainder of the school’s Gryffindors – except Black – sitting around the fire, not saying a word. </p><p>The reason why was immediately obvious. </p><p>“–YOU ARE A DISAPPOINTMENT TO THE HOUSE OF BLACK, AND–”</p><p>Severus walked over to the lit fireplace, grabbed a blank piece of parchment off of Frank Longbottom. “Hey!” And lit the end. Then he stalked up the staircase to the first year boys’ dorm. </p><p>Black was curled on his bed, head buried under a pillow. The Howler, bearing the grating voice of Mrs. Black, went on without a care for her son’s distress or, as it happened, for the halfblood who walked up behind her and lit her letter on fire. </p><p>Severus dropped his piece of parchment just before it could singe his fingers. Mrs. Black’s words seemed to melt, turning to gibberish as the paper burned away until all that was left was Severus and a few charred stains on the ground in front of him. </p><p>Black lifted the pillow off of his head and turned around. They stared at each other for a long moment before he said, “James left me his invisibility cloak so I could explore the castle while he’s gone. Want to sneak into the kitchen and see if the house elves will make us biscuits?”</p><p>Of course, Potter had an invisibility cloak. Why wouldn’t he? But Black had a look in his eyes, and Severus knew it from the mirror, and there was a crowd of nosy Gryffindors downstairs who had wanted nothing more than to enjoy his misery. Even though they all loved his pranks, they had wanted to listen to someone hurt him. Also, Severus really, really wanted to know where the kitchen was, and he’d never seen a house elf in real life before.</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>And from then on, they were friends.</p><p>--</p><p>Exams went by in a flurry. Fortunately, with the whole pack together – name pending, since Remus winced every time they said that word – they had someone who was good at every subject. Often multiple. Severus and Lily were best at potions, Lily and James were best at charms, James and Sirius were best at transfiguration, Sirius knew a stupid amount about astronomy, and all of them were good at defence. Remus, for his part, was good at everything except potions and just helpful enough that it was impossible to hate him for it.</p><p>So, they studied hard, and Lily glared at James every time he tried to distract her, and Sirius kept falling asleep while Severus tried to explain potions theory, and then, eventually, they were done. </p><p>Severus lay flat on his back on the floor of the boy’s dormitory. James nudged him with a toe. “Come on, Sev, you don’t want to miss the last dinner with Evans, do you?”</p><p>Lily was refusing to let him and Black call her by her first name. Remus was allowed, but he was on prohibition. </p><p>“I don’t see why. I’ll be seeing her over the summer, unlike some I could mention.”</p><p>James just laughed, and, grasping Severus’s forearm, pulled him to his feet. “Get up you greasy lump. You can sleep when you’re dead.”</p><p>“Empirically, you will find that I cannot,” Severus said in a careful tone, vaguely aware that he might be referencing a muggle thing that Lily had once shown him. </p><p>Remus, who was waiting for them at the door, laughed. “You really do make a proper Spock, don’t you?”</p><p>He was the only other halfblood in their friend group, and he’d actually grown up with muggle culture and stuff. When they went downstairs, Remus said the same thing to Lily, who laughed for ages, and then the two of them spent the entire feast – during which Ravenclaw won the cup – assigning character names to the group. James, Lily eventually conceded with a grimace, was someone called “Kirk”. </p><p>“He’s got the name and everything,” Remus had pointed out. Severus dug into his potatoes and tried not to think about the fact that this was the last happy meal he’d have for some time. </p><p>Remus was someone called “Uhura”. Sirius was “Scotty”. </p><p>“Like a dog,” Severus chimed in helpfully at that point, and got Sirius flicking a spoonful of peas at him for his troubles. </p><p>They all ate too much desert, and stayed in the common room until the prefects came and shooed them away to bed. </p><p>“Hey Severus,” Sirius hissed at about two in the morning, head poking between his curtains, “are you awake?”</p><p>Severus, who had in fact been staring at the top of his four-poster contemplating his deep desire to never, ever return home, said, “no.”</p><p>Sirius climbed through to sit perched on the edge of the bed. He was wearing his stripy pyjamas, which had originally been black and green with a snake embroidered on them. Sometime in November, James had successfully turned them red, but they’d been unable to change the snake, which hissed every time James came too near it. It didn’t hiss at Severus, though, possibly because he wasn’t actively filled with hatred for Slytherin House, only for some of its less desirable members. </p><p>“You remember at Christmas, when my mum sent the howler?” He was whispering, which was odd for Sirius unless he was playing a prank on someone.</p><p>“Yeah.” </p><p>Sirius was looking everywhere but at him. “I thought then that you might… you know, get it.”</p><p>Severus pushed himself up so they were at eye level, or close enough. “Get a howler?”</p><p>“No. You know, get it… not wanting to go back.”</p><p>He couldn’t say no. But he couldn’t really say yes, either. At least he had Lily. And Sirius had enough money to never worry about anything really. Except that it obviously wasn’t true, and Sirius wouldn’t be allowed to see any of them all summer. </p><p>“Go to bed, Sirius.”</p><p>“Your mum’s family was all Slytherin, right?”</p><p>“Not all. But they were the same sort as yours, if that’s what you mean.”</p><p>“What’s her maiden name?” Sirius asked, with a hint of mischief about him.</p><p>“Prince. Eileen Prince. Do I even want to know why?”</p><p>“Maybe my parents won’t mind me writing to Eileen Prince’s son. Even if he is half muggle.”</p><p>“My dad will probably mind what a posh prat you are.” At least he wouldn’t be able to object to Sirius’s race, which he would have with James, Severus was sure. There was probably a joke somewhere in there about being Black, but Severus was too tired to explain muggle racism to Sirius so he could tell it.</p><p>Sirius, for once in his entire life, actually looked, well, serious. “If you don’t want me to try, I won’t.”</p><p>“No. Try. And send me your letters for the others too, if you have enough galleons. Lily can post them.”</p><p>Sirius hugged him before going back to bed. It was weird.</p><p>--</p><p>The letters Sirius sent him that summer were all addressed to Mr. Severus Prince, and came enfolded with small stacks of sickles and knuts to pay postage for the letters to James and Remus. There were letters for Lily, too, but those he delivered by hand, while they were sitting on the swings or under a tree and just talking. It was good to have it be just them again. He’d missed this.</p><p>“Hey Sev,” she asked once, while they were taking shelter from the rain under a large bush, “why did you end up in Gryffindor? You seemed so sure you were going to end up in Slytherin. Not that I’m not happy you’re with me – I am. So happy. I can’t imagine what it would be like if I had to put up with James and Sirius all the time without you.”</p><p>“Remus would help.”</p><p>Lily shrugged. “Sure. Remus is great, but his mum is sick basically monthly, and he’s not you even when he is there. Don’t think I didn’t see you cuff James when he tried to throw those lacewings into Pettigrew’s cauldron.”</p><p>“It could have exploded,” Severus reminded her. He didn’t want her to think he was no fun either. </p><p>She nodded, seriously. “I know. And Slughorn wouldn’t have noticed until it had blown up in his face. But that’s my point. Remus wouldn’t have told them no. He’s too chicken. You’re brave enough to tell them where to shove it.”</p><p>“Maybe that’s why I’m a Gryffindor,” Severus offered, even though it wasn’t true. He was there for Lily, and if telling James not to be a prat was part of it, then that was that.</p><p>--</p><p>“What I’m saying,” Severus said, thumping the calendar he’d put in front of them for emphasis, “is that it’s the full moon tonight. In fact, it’s been the full moon every time Remus’s mum has been sick all year. And last year too, I bet.”</p><p>James pushed his glasses up like a character in a muggle comic. “You think Remus’s mum is a werewolf?”</p><p>Merlin, but his friends were idiots. “No. That would be stupid. Who would want their kid around to watch them turn into a wolf? I’m saying that Remus is a werewolf. Obviously.”</p><p>It was a good thing he was already sitting on the floor of the dorm. It meant that when Sirius punched him, he didn’t have far to fall. “Ow!”</p><p>Sirius was on his feet, looking absolutely furious with his wand raised. “That’s a terrible thing to say about someone, Snape. You – you snake.”</p><p>Oh, that wasn’t even clever. “Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean it isn’t true, Black. I know lots of things that you don’t like. Like that your mummy doesn’t love you.”</p><p>“Two can play at that game, Snivellus. That’s what the Slytherins all call you, you know? Want to know what I know about daddy dearest?”</p><p>James, who was sitting on the edge of his bed, roared to his feet yelling, “shut up!”</p><p>They both turned to stare. James repeated, “shut up. Both of you. Your parents are all terrible, and it is awful to say someone is a werewolf, but Severus is right, that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. It also doesn’t mean Remus isn’t our friend. We’ve lived with him for more than a year, and he has been nothing but good to all of us. Severus – remember when Ulquist tried to hex you last year and Remus kicked him and got detention for a week? Sirius, remember the Easter Incident?”</p><p>They never spoke about the Easter Incident. Even Lily didn’t know about the Easter Incident. </p><p>Severus pushed himself up on his arm and said, “what are you saying? That Remus is a werewolf and we just… let it go?”</p><p>James shrugged. “I’m not saying we shouldn’t ask him. But… have you told Evans already?”</p><p>He hadn’t. First thing that morning he’d woken up, noticed Remus was gone, and told the other two boys who were still in the room. “No.”</p><p>“Then… let’s keep it that way, yeah? At least until we talk to Remus. She’s a muggleborn, she doesn’t know what a big deal this is in our world.”</p><p>Severus didn’t think he understood, either. “For the halfbloods among us?”</p><p>Sirius, finally finding his voice, said, “the things they can do to werewolves legally, without consequences… even you wouldn’t wish them on your worst enemy, Sev. Remus is a good bloke. Even – even if he is a werewolf, we can’t let anyone else know. They could kick him out of Hogwarts. You know how much being here means to him.”</p><p>A pox on Black and all his kin for their ability to have baleful eyes. “We can talk to him when he gets back in a couple days. If – if the teachers don’t know, I don’t think that’s right.”</p><p>Sirius still looked baleful, but James was nodding. “I bet Dumbledore does. Dumbledore knows everything. We talk to Remus in a couple days, he can probably prove it, and we won’t tell anyone else, unless he says it’s okay. Deal?”</p><p>Sirius and Severus both reached up to shake his offered hand at the same time, and ended up sort of awkwardly patting James’s hand instead.</p><p>--</p><p>Remus cried when they told him they knew, and cried again when they found him packing two hours later and, baffled, told him he wasn’t going anywhere. Nobody other than his parents and professors had ever known before. </p><p>Before Lily, Severus had never had a magical friend either. He thought that he might have an idea of exactly how much that meant. Remus might have been a dark creature, but he was also a bookish, awkward, spotty thing. </p><p>“You aren’t scared of him, are you?” James had taunted, his own lack of fear obvious. </p><p>Determined not to be shown up by James Potter, again, Severus said, “absolutely not.”</p><p>--</p><p>The summer after second year was almost exactly the same as the summer after first year, except this time all the letters Lily posted from him to Remus included lines like, “hope you remembered to take your furry little problem on a walk this weekend” and “how is the scruffy little thing anyways?” She still didn’t know what any of it meant, and Severus hadn’t told her. </p><p>--</p><p>He dragged Lily up the stairs to the boy’s third year dormitory two at a time, and deposited her at the foot of Remus’s bed. Their bookish friend didn’t look up. </p><p>“Sirius, watch the door,” Severus said, and then sent Remus’s book flying over to the corner behind his own bed with a flick of his wand. </p><p>That, finally, got his attention. “Severus, I’m trying to do arithmancy.”</p><p>“Lils,” Severus said, a little breathless from running up the stairs, “tell Remus exactly what you told me.”</p><p>After a bit of prodding, she started talking about lunar calendars, and James stuck his head out from his closed curtains and said, “this means Sirius owes me money. I told you she’d guess.”</p><p>Remus buried his head in his hands. He wasn’t crying, which made it an improvement on last time. </p><p>Lily punched Severus in the arm. “You’ve known for ages! I can’t believe you lied to me. You… you… you… liar.”</p><p>“That,” Sirius said, from where he was leaning by the door, “is why you leave the insults to us Lily dearest.”</p><p>As if he wasn’t the master jokester behind ‘Severus Snake’. “Go jump in the lake, Black. Yes, we knew. Figured it out last year. But… wizards don’t like werewolves, Lils. It’s like… a muggle racism thing. Like the blood stuff.”</p><p>She shook her head a little as if in disbelief? “And you thought I’d out Remus like that? Seriously? He was my friend before you were, James, and you, Sirius.”</p><p>James, pushing his curtains back, looked at her seriously. “Lily, if we’d told you, explained the kind of danger Remus is in, how calm do you think you could have been when Professor Wilkinson was explaining how werewolves should be killed on sight three weeks ago.”</p><p>Lily, who had missed that particular defence lecture because Pettigrew’s cauldron had exploded beside her and she’d had to go to the Hospital Wing, yelled, “he said what?”</p><p>James just gestured vaguely at her as if it proved his point. “Nobody can know. We don’t talk about it, we don’t acknowledge it. Dumbledore decides which of the staff to tell.”</p><p>“And we get even later,” Sirius added. “Wilkinson has been finding the nifflers from Care of Magical Creatures in his rooms. Can’t imagine why.”</p><p>It was the rare prank that Severus was actively helping with. The nifflers were only going to be the beginning. Remus, who didn’t know about it, said, “what do you mean you’re getting even? Are you doing that to everyone who talks about… it?”</p><p>Nobody told him, and after a moment, Lily asked, “so what are you doing to stop other people from noticing? They’re not idiots, you know.”</p><p>Everyone looked at Severus. Naturally. “Well, I had the idea that it might help if Remus was seen around on the full moons a bit. Not by the professors who know, of course, but I’m making polyjuice. I think that if I take his hair in the middle of the month, whoever takes it will look completely healthy running around while Remus is actually lying in a hospital bed feeling miserable.”</p><p>“I still think it’s a terrible idea. What if it turns you?” Remus really didn’t know anything about potions.</p><p>Lily shook her head. “No, it wouldn’t. Polyjuice can’t do non-human forms, you get stuck in between. Plus, lycanthropy can only be transmitted by a bite in wolf form, right? I could stick my hand in your mouth right now and I’d be fine. I can do the polyjuice. People will think it’s way more credible if they see all four of you together at the same time.”</p><p>She looked around the room. “Now, are there any other secret plans I should know about?”</p><p>“Well,” James said, at the edge of his bed, “do you want to hear about the anamagi thing first, or the invisibility cloak, or Severus’s spell-inventing, or the enchanted map?”</p><p>Remus, sensibly, put his head back in his hands.</p><p>--</p><p>The next summer, Lily went to Diagon Alley and bought every book she could find about werewolves, and told her parents it was for a summer project. She read them with Severus under an old oak tree, they made corrections in red ink and mailed them back to the publishers when they were finished. Every letter they signed “Professor Tyrian Wilkinson, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry”. He didn’t end up coming back to Hogwarts after that, and one of the publishers pulled their stupid, wrong book. So that was something. </p><p>As thanks, James and Sirius pooled their galleons and bought Lily an owl all of her own, so she could stop committing her frauds through the paid post.</p><p>--</p><p>“If you and Sirius don’t make peace,” James hissed, while Flitwick’s back was turned, “I am going to strangle both of you.”</p><p>Severus crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not making peace with Sirius over his idiotic view that Regulus and I can’t be friends. Regulus is perfectly pleasant. If Sirius wants me to stop spending time with him, then he needs to find me someone else I can talk to about potions who isn’t a complete dunderhead.”</p><p>Flitwick glared at them. James sighed, and ripped a piece of parchment out of his book. It took him a minute to write the note, which he passed over to Severus. </p><p>
  <em> I know Sirius is being a berk. But you know his family is an absolute buggering nightmare. You’re antaganis – antagonizing him. Talk. To. Him. </em>
</p><p>Severus waited a minute before scribbling back on the reverse side of the same sheet. <em> Better plan. Bring Sirius to secret 3rd floor passage tonight at eight. </em></p><p>“Incarcerus!” Severus hissed, the second Sirius stuck his head through the portrait. James, catching on, did the same to Regulus. </p><p>Sirius, who’d been standing, crashed to the floor tied neatly in rope. Regulus, who was already sitting down, was much luckier. James even gave him a bow.</p><p>James grinned and flipped his wand over in his hand while Sirius cussed him out. </p><p>“Have fun, boys. Enjoy figuring out your differences and do try to get out before curfew.”</p><p>Regulus, the bastard, managed to trip Severus as he was leaving. </p><p>When they were out in the hallway, admiring the sounds of their handiwork, James clapped Severus on the back and said, “come on, Evans will be wondering where we’ve gotten to.”</p><p>Severus woke up the next morning to James screaming, and found that all of his robes had been embossed with the words ‘Sirius Black has an enormous cock’ across the chest in big golden letters, and his hair had been turned pink, and he had a twirly moustache drawn on his face that wouldn’t come off.</p><p>“The good news,” James said brightly, holding up his own robes which read simply, ‘Regulus Black for Minister’, “is that it means they’re working together.” His hair seemed immune to magical meddling, but he had a pair of glasses drawn on in addition to his actual glasses, and a handlebar moustache.</p><p>Sirius and Severus both got three days of detention for the robes. James and Regulus, the wankers, got five points each for political engagement.</p><p>--</p><p>That summer, Severus’s father had a job, for once. He lost it in three weeks, but it was something. After he lost it being inside became, somehow, even more unbearable. Severus snuck in at all hours and got yelled at when he was seen. The only bright spot in all of it – other than Lily – was that her parents were letting her invite friends to visit while her sister was away with their grandparents. Sirius couldn’t come, of course, but James did, for a few days, laughing and ruffling Severus’s hair and not looking sadly at him the way Lily did. </p><p>Remus came too, for a couple days after James had gone, firmly in the middle of the month. He could tell. It was far more obvious to a muggleborn or halfblood when something was wrong in a muggle upbringing. A pureblood like James didn’t have any sense of normal, any more than Severus did for someone like Sirius. But Remus made it obvious that he knew. Once, when Lily had gone down to the chip shop – and refused to take money from either of them – he addressed it head on in a way Lily didn’t.</p><p>“You don’t like us knowing, do you? About your dad.”</p><p>Severus resisted the truly powerful urge to scream at him. “Whatever gave you that impression?”</p><p>Remus flushed. “Stupid question I guess. I just… you’ve been kind to me, and I wanted you to know that I don’t think less of you any more than I do of Sirius.”</p><p>Sirius’s parents were truly powerful. Severus was afraid of a stupid, drunk, ugly muggle. “Maybe you should?”</p><p>“I’ll think less of you the day you think less of me. Until then, I guess you’ll have to put up with it.”</p><p>Fair enough.</p><p>--</p><p>Fifth year was their busiest one yet. They had OWLs coming up, for one thing. Since they were on their fifth new professor in five years, defence was a disaster, and Slughorn was so obsessed with his stupid club that he didn’t have time to actually teach anything at all.</p><p>“You know if you really want to come to the Slug Club, you can be my date.”</p><p>“If I wanted to come, I’d ask Lily.” Or James and Sirius, who had invitations for being heirs, or Remus, who had one for being top in the year overall last year. </p><p>Regulus shrugged. “All I’m saying is, Slug Club is miserable. Sure, Sirius is there, and your Lily, but basically everyone else sucks or sucks up.” </p><p>Regulus was a good friend. It was going to be hard to keep it from him next week when Severus had to keep a leaf in his mouth for a whole month. But Regulus didn’t know Remus was a werewolf, so they couldn’t exactly tell him they were secretly becoming anamagi to help him. </p><p>They picked a month that went over the winter break so they wouldn’t miss too much class. Lily wouldn’t stand for that. She stayed at school. They all did, even Remus, whose parents had been terribly upset. He needed to be there to speak clearly for them in case they couldn’t. Regulus went home, and Sirius got another howler for his troubles. This time, he lit it on fire himself at breakfast with an angry flick of his wand. </p><p>Still, with that and everything else, it was the end of March before James burst into the dorm and yelled, “I’ve got it!” They all turned to stare at him.</p><p>Shacklebolt, who also technically shared their room and had since first year, threw up his hands and said, “whatever it is, I want no part of it.” Summoning his books, he fled the scene.</p><p>It was probably a good thing he kept his head down and practically slept in the library. Otherwise he definitely would have noticed by now that Remus was a werewolf. </p><p>Remus looked over the edge of his magazine. “Lily’s finally letting you call her by her first name?”</p><p>James flipped him off and turned into a stag. </p><p>Sirius applauded. Remus put his head in his hands. </p><p>“You are not taking on… my furry problem as a fucking pointy horse.” </p><p>James hooked his antlers into the curtains of Remus’s bed and pulled them right off. It was definitely a helpful demonstration.</p><p>“He’s a very pointy horse,” Sirius said loyally.</p><p>“It’s the first time he’s ever had a point to him in his whole life,” Severus corrected, and used the time it took James to change back to duck behind the bed to avoid his jinx.</p><p>After that, it went quick. Sirius was a big black dog, and Lily an elegant raven. </p><p>“It’s alright if it isn’t working,” she said, three days before the full moon. “James and Sirius can manage Remus, and I can press the button on the willow and go for help if anyone needs it.”</p><p>Severus shook his head. “It’s close. I can feel it. I know what I have to be, and it’s right on the tip of my tongue, and I just need to do it.”</p><p>Lily looked at him like he was stupid. “So do it.”</p><p>“But I don’t know how.”</p><p>“Yes you do, Sev. You have everything you need right here.” </p><p>“What the fuck is that?” James said, later, looking down at Snape with his arms crossed. </p><p>“He’s a Smith’s Dwarf Chameleon,” Lily said, holding up the page of the muggle zoology book she’d ordered at the start of the year. “He can camouflage himself, and apparently, he can do it to the eyesight of whatever predator he’s avoiding.”</p><p>Remus looked approving as Snape shifted back. “Yeah. That’ll do perfectly.”</p><p>--</p><p>OWLs were mostly a blur. Severus sat too many, did too many practicals, and only made it to the last exam because Remus and James carried him in. Afterwards, the boys sat under a tree while Lily went to, in her words, “go dunk my head in the lake and try to wash all the memorization out.”</p><p>It was there, somewhere between James’s catching of that stupid snitch and Sirius’s recitation of all the stupid questions they’d asked, that Severus nodded off. </p><p>He woke to the sound of yelling and Remus shaking his shoulder.</p><p>“Pervert Pettigrew,” James was saying. The Slytherin in question was hanging upside down, robes around his head. “I saw you peaking in while the Gryffindor quidditch team was changing. Hoping to catch a glimpse of someone’s wand?”</p><p>Sirius laughed. “Or were you looking for a witch to teach you how to polish yours? Nobody tell you we’d swapped schedules with the Slytherin Ladies rec squad?”</p><p>Damnit. Severus hadn’t invented that stupid spell for this. He was halfway to getting his wand out when Lily dumped Pettigrew unceremoniously on his head. She’d cast finite incantatum instead of liberacorpus, so he hadn’t flipped back over. Ignoring Pettigrew’s cry of pain, she stuck the point at James’s throat. </p><p>“Is it true? Was he really looking in on people changing?”</p><p>It was. Severus had heard all about it after the relevant training session. Sirius and James had talked about the incident for about three hours. </p><p>Nervously, James nodded. Sirius said, “Yeah, Birdbrain.”</p><p>She whirled on him, identifying her next target. “And you didn’t tell a professor? No. You just had to save it for blackmail when he could have hurt someone. So you could strip him down in front of the whole school. It’s all very well for you, you showboating bastards. You’ve probably never had someone look at you like a piece of meat.” She spat at his feet. “Rot in hell, Potter, Black.” </p><p>--</p><p>That summer was… weird. There were no letters from Sirius, and Lily was ignoring all her mail from James. So it was nearly the end of August before she ran into Severus, paper crumpled in her hand and yelled, </p><p>“Sirius ran away from home!”</p><p>The world seemed to be spinning. “What?”</p><p>“Don’t worry, he’s with James. I guess that’s why he wasn’t sending you any letters – they weren’t letting him send any, and they wanted him to do… something, Remus is a bit hazy on the details, and they had a huge fight and Sirius ran away and he’s living with the Potters and Remus said he tried to take Regulus with him but he ended up getting hexed and Reg stayed and –”</p><p>Severus grabbed the letter from Remus and read it for himself. Twice. </p><p>“Lily,” he said, trying to breathe normally, “will you send a letter for me?”</p><p>
  <em> Dear Sirius, </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Just heard. Heard you tried to help Regulus, too. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Thank you. You mad, Gryffindor bastard. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Lily and I still haven’t forgiven you for Pettigrew. You needed to actually do something about the problem not just use it for a bit of fun. Lils heard that when they searched his stuff, he’d been stealing underwear from the Slytherin girls. But I bet you heard all about that already.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sincerely, </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Severus Snape</em>
</p><p>
  <em>PS: No, I’m not calling you ‘Padfoot.’ Stop calling me ‘Scales’. I’m just glad I can sign my letters to you with my real surname now.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>PPS: Good job. </em>
</p><p>Sirius never replied, but he got a letter from James that said: </p><p>
  <em>Scales, </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Thanks. He needed that. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>You’re always welcome here too, if you want. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Prongs</em>
</p><p>And that meant just as much, really.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I fully maintain that 1) James Potter would have befriended any combination of weirdos and rejects living with him (Kingsley is neither, and doesn’t count) 2) That Severus, at age 11, would eventually have given in to aforementioned people-collecting and 3) Lily could have figured out that Remus was a werewolf all on her own.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Years 6 and 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Severus’s friendship grow. Some of them are growing into... something else. Also, Regulus Black proves his mettle.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>CW/TW: canon-typical child abuse. Severus, Sirius, Regulus. Always offscreen.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sixth year started with Severus alone, watching other students say goodbye to their families. His mother had shown him the way onto Platform 9 ¾ exactly once, and otherwise had said goodbye from the car. This year, they hadn’t even managed that. He’d gotten a ride to the station with Lily. But he was not alone for long.</p>
<p>“Sev!” He barely turned in time to catch two armfuls flailing Slytherin.</p>
<p>“Regulus.”</p>
<p>Regulus squeezed him tighter than Severus would have thought possible.</p>
<p>“You don’t have any Gryffindor colours on and I need you to come pretend to my parents that you’re my roommate.”</p>
<p>Merlin save him from the Black brothers. “Which one?”</p>
<p>“Armand Lévesque.”</p>
<p>The real Lévesque was a pureblood of middling intelligence and French origin, albeit without a discernable accent. Maybe he was Canadian? Severus didn’t look anything like him, but he gritted his teeth and tried to be a Gryffindor.</p>
<p>He bowed to Regulus and Sirius’s parents. “Lord and Lady Black. I am honoured.”</p>
<p>Mrs. Black narrowed her eyes at Regulus. Of all the various Blacks he’d seen in person or paintings over the years, she looked most like a combination of Regulus and their cousin Bellatrix. Mr. Black, at her shoulder, looked more like Sirius, although with a rather large and extremely well groomed beard. “I don’t appreciate being lied to.”</p>
<p>Regulus’s expression was totally bland. “I know, Mother. That’s why I’m introducing you to Armand now. No more secrets. Not like Sirius.”</p>
<p>Both of his parents flinched at the name.</p>
<p>Severus took Regulus’s trunk. “I promised Gilbert I would meet him on the train. Shall I take your bag while you say goodbye? You can meet us both when you’ve finished.”</p>
<p>Nodding politely to both of them, he took the two trunks onto the train and into the first open compartment. There he waited until Regulus burst in. </p>
<p>“What is happening?” Severus demanded, at the same time as Regulus asked, </p>
<p>“Where is Sirius?”</p>
<p>They stared are each other a moment. Severus said, “safe, last I heard. With the Potters.”</p>
<p>“Is there even a student named Gilbert in Hogwarts?”</p>
<p>“Like your parents know. They don’t even know what ‘Armand’ looks like. Or who Severus Prince is, apparently, in spite of the fact that Sirius has been sending him letters for the last five years.”</p>
<p>Regulus just sighed, and sat down hard across from Severus. Lily, letting herself into the compartment, stared a moment at the pair of them. </p>
<p>Regulus said, “have you seen Sirius?”</p>
<p>When Lily jerked her thumb towards the back of the train, he was up like a shot. Severus helped her put her trunk up beside Reg’s and waited for the impending chaos when James and Remus piled in, shoving bags up and sitting beside Severus. </p>
<p>“It’s bad,” Remus said, without them having to ask. “Regulus started crying the second he saw him and Sirius wasn’t far behind. I charmed the compartment so nobody else would walk in on them.”</p>
<p>James nodded. “It was bad this summer too. Padfoot’s parents want him to sign up as a Death Eater when he turns seventeen. He said no, they said that at least Regulus was a good son, he said that if they tried to make Regulus sign up, he’d go out and have an army of children with as many muggle and muggleborn women as possible and firmly dilute the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black for good. She said he wouldn’t and he said no, he wouldn’t because he’s gay, and by the way when he becomes Lord Black he’s going to give all their money away to fund muggleborn education and werewolf rights. His mother said he was disowned, Padfoot summoned his trunk, but his mum wouldn’t let him take it, and then Regulus heard the shouting and came downstairs and the situation actually managed to escalate from there. They ended up having the house elf bodily throw Padfoot onto the street. If Regulus hadn’t thrown a few Galleons out after him, he would have had to walk all the way to my place. It’s a good thing I took him home secretly for Christmas in third year or he would have had nowhere at all.”</p>
<p>Merlin. Fuck. “What are we going to do?”</p>
<p>They needed to discuss it before Sirius got back, the way they had before they told Remus about the Anamagi thing. They needed to do something. It was what you did for friends. And even if Sirius was an idiot most of the time, they were friends. </p>
<p>James, all Gryffindor fury, snapped, “Sirius isn’t going back there. Ever. My parents love him and he’s staying.”</p>
<p>Few people in this world loved anybody as resolutely as James loves Sirius. It was a fact of life. Sirius loved him the same. It was the same way Severus loved Lily. </p>
<p>“Can your parents afford that?” Lily asked, her blood status showing in a way it rarely did these days.</p>
<p>Remus snorted. “Prongs’s parents are obscenely rich. The Blacks could take them sure, but that’s because they’re a bunch of bloody-minded incestuous aristocrats. The Potters have old blood and new money. Sirius is nothing. They could probably take all of you on without trouble.”</p>
<p>But not Remus of course, because he was a Problem. Or that was how he thought anyways. The truth was that in a just world he would be a far more welcome house guest than Severus, three weeks out of four.</p>
<p>“What about Regulus?”</p>
<p>James quirked his head. “He’s still living with his parents. They haven’t thrown him out.”</p>
<p>No, the situation was worse than that. “But he isn’t safe there. Or happy. Sirius was probably keeping as much of the heat off of him as he could. You know how Sirius is.”</p>
<p>Sirius would take a knife to the throat – or deliver one – to keep suffering off of those he cared about. Recently, Regulus had made his way back onto that list, if he had ever truly left it. </p>
<p>“Regulus can move in too for all I care,” James said, both bullish and magnanimously. </p>
<p>“Because House Black will love it if your family steals all their heirs,” Severus said. </p>
<p>James shrugged. “It’s not stealing if they kick them out. And Regulus is almost of age anyways.”</p>
<p>True, but it was a long couple of years to wait. Lily said, “what’s wizard law like for emancipation? Or alternate guardianship agreements? If they were muggles, Sirius could probably be Reg’s guardian as soon as he’s legal.” </p>
<p>James adjusted his glasses. Remus shrugged and said, “I don’t know. It’s an idea for sure. I could ask my dad.” </p>
<p>Lyall Lupin was, technically, a barrister. Unless he was a solicitor. Or he had been one at some point anyways. Severus couldn’t really remember.</p>
<p>Lily looked like she was about to kiss him. “Thank you, Remus.”</p>
<p>“Moony,” James corrected. “Padfoot and I decided. Moony, Padfoot, Prongs, Scales and–”</p>
<p>“Not Birdbrain,” Lily interjected. James shrugged. “I’ve been thinking of it all summer. I want to be called Nevermore.”</p>
<p>“Why?”</p>
<p>Remus was grinning broadly. “There’s a muggle poem called the Raven. It has a line ‘quoth the Raven, “nevermore”’. I like it.”</p>
<p>James could never dislike any suggestion of Lily’s. It went against his basic nature. “Then Nevermore you are, My Lady.”</p>
<p>“Why does she get to object to her name when I have to be ‘Scales’?”</p>
<p>James, the bastard, flicked him on the nose. “Because, Scales, you didn’t come up with an alternative. And I like Scales for you. You’re half a Slytherin – in the only good way, really – and you care about justice. Two types of scales, and your clever colour-changing ones. I still can’t believe they do that without magic.”</p>
<p>“You could also be Rainbow,” Remus offered, helpfully. </p>
<p>“I can’t believe you agreed to ‘Moony’. It’s terrible. Everyone will know!”</p>
<p>“I thought we would just tell them that we got an eyeful of Remus this summer.”</p>
<p>“And when have any of you seen Remus wearing less than three layers?”</p>
<p>Remus flipped Severus off. James said, “oh I’m sure Sirius has seen plenty.”</p>
<p>Remus turned red as the Gryffindor patch on James’s jacket. </p>
<p>Lily opened her mouth to say something, Remus and Severus simultaneously remembered that she was muggleborn and thus much more conservative than even the most stringent purebloods about this sort of thing. Severus slapped James on the shoulder, and Sirius and Regulus obliviously broke the tense moment by bursting in, arms around each other and Sirius’s trunk floating behind them. </p>
<p>“My brother,” Sirius said, voice bursting with pride, “is as worthy of being a Marauder as any of us. He has informed my mother that the reason he behaves so oddly is because he was worried she wouldn’t like his boyfriend Armand, and after the whole debacle it dovetailed with all her expectations about my bad influence. Fortunately, Regulus picked a proper pureblood gentleman, so all will be well for our golden – green and silver – boy.”</p>
<p>Severus buried his head in his hands. Sirius, shoving in between him and James, clapped him on the back. “And good work from you too, Scales. You’re going to have to play the role for the foreseeable future, so starting taking notes about his mannerisms and family.”</p>
<p>Well, there were worse fates. Lily, voice hesitant, said, “did she not like your boyfriend, Sirius?”</p>
<p>Severus loved her for her ability to just accept it, even though she’d been told such things were wrong her whole life. He knew because he’d been told the same. </p>
<p>“She wouldn’t,” Sirius said, “and it’s a mark in his favour.” He put his feet up in Remus’s lap. Remus shoved them out once but it did him no good. </p>
<p>Regulus’s brow furrowed slightly. “I thought... your people hated homosexuality.”</p>
<p>Lily took it in stride. Putting her feet up in Severus’s lap, she said, “well, I don’t know about ‘my people’, but I assure you if I were to hate any of you, it would be for better reasons. And anyways, I thought your people were supposed to hate my people.”</p>
<p>Regulus flushed. James said to him, “well, I’m not putting my feet up on your lap, Reg.” </p>
<p>Regulus kicked him in the shin, and all was well between the six of them.</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>Sixth year was the best in Severus’s memory. James and Sirius, chastened by experience, were infinitely more tolerable than the year before. Pettigrew had been sent away to Durmstrang, to be straightened out, and the rest of the Slytherins mostly avoided them, as long as they were avoided in turn. The defence teacher was passable, and, with OWLs done, Serverus’s course load was greatly decreased, although he had gotten sufficient grades to pick up an elective for alchemy. He’d goaded Lily and James, who didn’t have any actual interest in the subject but had the grades for it, into signing up to ensure they’d offer it.</p>
<p>Now, he could dedicate most of his time to the subjects he liked best – potions and defense – and those that were the most helpful at increasing his sense in those, like herbology, which he was the only one of their friend group to keep. Lily’s friend MacKinnon was his partner for most of the course work. In his other classes, he still had most of the Marauders. And Regulus, who wasn’t in any of his classes, was always happy to talk about potions. </p>
<p>It was Regulus to whom, in spite of everything he didn’t know, Severus said, “do you think it would be possible to cure lycanthropy with a potion?”</p>
<p>And it was Regulus, who didn’t even question why he was asking, who brought Severus as a date to the Slug Club Christmas Party and got him an introduction to Damocles Belby. They weren’t actually dating – Regulus was actually, it turned out, straight – but Reg was as loyal as Sirius was, at the core of the matter. He deserved so much better than House Black could give him.</p>
<p>“I can’t believe I never knew you were interested in creature rights too,” Regulus had said, and launched into a diatribe about the legal status of House Elves that had made Severus far too fond to correct him about his motivations. The truth was, he’d spent enough time crouched, half-invisible, on the boarded-up windowsill of the Shrieking Shack, that he couldn’t imagine ever wanting to see anyone suffer through the transformation again.</p>
<p>“It’s important,” was all Severus really managed to say for himself, and sat back to enjoy the continuation of Regulus’s rant. </p>
<p>In February, Regulus’s roommates started asking questions about why he cared so much about werewolves, since he always had books on them.</p>
<p>“So I panicked and told them that I was the one who got Professor Wilkinson fired with all that Werewolf stuff he didn’t do, which I don’t think they believed. So I let them pry some more and then I said that Bellatrix had asked me to do it for the Dark Lord, and, actually, I think that worked. Idiots.”</p>
<p>Regulus was sitting at the end of Sirius’s bed, holding his Care of Magical Creatures textbook but not looking down at it. The rest of the Gryffindors had gotten used to them bringing him in, eventually.</p>
<p>“Hang on,” James said, “why did you panic?”</p>
<p>Regulus flushed. “Well, you know.” He gestured vaguely at Remus, who was quickly going from white with fear to green with nausea. “The thing we don’t talk about. Severus kept knowing incredibly useful facts about the transformation that I couldn’t find in any book, and I did the math on the nicknames, so…” </p>
<p>There was a moment of complete stillness as Shacklebolt’s curtain slid open. He looked around the room at the five Marauders and Regulus. They looked back at him. Remus started hyperventilating. </p>
<p>“I’m not an idiot,” Shacklebolt said. “I have lived here for six years, you know. Also, at least one of you has a secret pet or is an unregistered animagus or both, because I doubt Lupin is the one leaving black fur all over.”</p>
<p>Sirius pulled Remus close. Regulus looked kind of excited. James, very solemnly, said, “thank you, Kingsley.”</p>
<p>He shrugged. “Please for the love of god register when you graduate. Not you, Lupin – I’m taking magical law by Owl and I think the werewolf registry is a load of bollocks – these idiots. I really would like to get through auror training without half of my graduating class being arrested for being illegal animagi. I bet McGonagall would even lie and say she taught you if Potter asked nicely.”</p>
<p>Lily cast the spells to alert them if anyone was coming up the stairs, with a muffliato for good measure, and said, “I guess we should get everyone on the same page then, if we’re all in this together.”</p>
<p>With Remus’s nodded permission, they began.</p>
<p>--</p>
<p>For the rest of that year, Regulus, who had a free period at the right time, attended sixth year defense on the full moon as Remus Lupin. It was always a reliable bet, they had learned, that the defense professors didn’t know. It was good fun, and he learned a lot. Plus, as added bonus, at the end of the year Regulus got to be witness to Professor Milosz having a breakdown and pulling off a skintight face mask to reveal an only marginally older version of the same exact man. Nobody ever really figured out what was up with that, but he was fired, and Remus had to spend the rest of the year – with Dumbledore covering defense – pretending that he’d seen it too.</p>
<p>--</p>
<p>In the summer after sixth year, Severus woke to the sound of someone tapping on his window, and almost hexed James. Once that was cleared up, he let James pull himself through and dust off his pyjamas. </p>
<p>“How in Merlin’s name did you find me, Potter?”</p>
<p>James waved his hands vaguely in a gesture that probably meant ‘Lily’. “It’s an emergency. Regulus is missing, Padfoot and Nevermore are with Moony for the moon tonight, and the Blacks are this close to challenging my parents to a duel.”</p>
<p>“Why?”</p>
<p>Severus was already gathering his things with careful flicks of his wand. If he left tonight, he wasn’t coming back. It felt… final. He’d been apparating in and out of his room to avoid his parents all summer. His father was sick again – for certain values of sick – and his mother hadn’t really met his eyes since his first year at Hogwarts. If Regulus was brave enough to leave the Blacks, and him a Slytherin at that, then Severus was brave enough to go, too. He was tired of being a coward. James watched him barely for a second before he began casting an undetectable extension charm on Severus’s suitcase.</p>
<p>“They won’t say, but the House Elf is there and he looks distressed too. Black eye, big lump on his head, but also definitely emotionally distressed. I got Mrs. Black to order him to make us tea in our own kitchen, and when we were alone he told me that he couldn’t tell me exactly what happened to Regulus because he’s ‘Forbidden to Discuss the Dark Lord with Blood Traitors.’”</p>
<p>House Elves were brilliant at breaking rules when they put their minds to it. And Regulus loved Kreacher quite irrationally. Evidently he’d been right to do so.</p>
<p>“He can’t take the mark – he’s fifteen.” Merlin’s fucking balls. Even younger than Sirius had been when they had first broached the issue with him.</p>
<p>James nodded. “Obviously, Sirius doesn’t know yet. And nobody knows I’m here. You’re our secret weapon, Scales. I’ll go home like nothing happened, you need to find Reg. Please.”</p>
<p>“He was my friend first,” Severus reminded him, “you don’t need to ask me to help him. I just will.”</p>
<p>James hugged him tight. It was only then that Severus realized that he was shaking. It must have been awful, to have the Blacks barge into his house and declare Regulus missing. It was only lucky that Lily and Sirius were on Remus duty. Otherwise there would have been total panic.</p>
<p>Where would Regulus go if he needed to escape from his family? If he had enough Galleons for the Knight Bus, he could be anywhere in the country by now. If Severus were hiding from Regulus’s parents, he would have done so in Muggle London and been quite invisible to their pureblood ways. But Regulus had probably never been to any muggle city in his life. So odds were he was in a wizarding one. And there was the question of Regulus’s larger aim. Without help, he wouldn’t be able to last until the beginning of the new term. </p>
<p>Regulus had left on the night of the full moon. He would have wanted to be found by one of their friend group. </p>
<p>Shrinking his trunk, Severus pocketed it and turned to James. </p>
<p>“I think I know where he is. He’s–” </p>
<p>James put a finger over his lips. “Shh, Scales. I’m hardly a master of occlumency. See he’s safe, and then come home. My parents will be delighted to meet you, and you can certainly stay the rest of the summer.”</p>
<p>It was a gesture of shocking intimacy. So terribly close to a kiss. But not intended as such, since James was – both of them were – quietly, fiercely in love with Lily. </p>
<p>As James withdrew his finger, Severus said, “thank you for coming to tell me, this time.” </p>
<p>“As you said: Regulus is your friend. He’s your Sirius. You needed to know.”</p>
<p>“Lily is my Sirius.”</p>
<p>James shook his head. “Lily is Nevermore. She’s a force of nature. You and I both know that, I think.”</p>
<p>It was true. “I should go, Prongs.”</p>
<p>That got a broad smile from him. “Hey, you finally used one of the Marauder names!”</p>
<p>He hugged him again, and then, stepping back into the moonlight, disapparated with a crack. </p>
<p>Well, if by some miracle his parents had slept through the rest of it, they were certainly awake now. Severus turned on his heel and bid the house in which he had grown up goodbye.</p>
<p>The town of Hogsmede formed around him, unfamiliar in the dead of night. With Remus, they’d only ever wandered the grounds or the forest, for obvious reasons. But at the moment, he was at home, with Lily to pick the cellar window as a raven and Sirius as a dog curled up beside him. Severus had no idea what they were going to do if Mr. and Mrs. Lupin caught them. So, with this in mind, Severus ran up towards the shrieking shack in his muggle pyjamas, shifting into a chameleon to slip through the tops of the boarded windows and then changing back.</p>
<p>Regulus jumped, wand twitching towards him, and then relaxed. He was wearing robes, but they were dirty and he didn’t have any trunk or rucksack to carry a change of clothes in.</p>
<p>“Mind you don’t set off the trace. The ministry will have you locked up at 12 Grimauld before you can say ‘Most Ancient and Noble’.”</p>
<p>“I haven’t, yet. And you found me before they did, so that means something.”</p>
<p>His words fell on deaf ears. Severus strode across the room, taking Regulus’s right hand in his own. There was irritation and blood around his wrist as if he’d been tied up. Regulus winced. </p>
<p>“What in the name of Salazar’s sweaty ballsack is this, Regulus?” Regulus looked at the ground and didn’t say anything. “Kreacher implied they wanted you to take the damn mark, not that they locked you up.” Oh fuck, now he was crying, still wordlessly. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. But at least let me get you something to put on it or, better. Episkey.” The wound healed over quickly. </p>
<p>If the Blacks came for their younger son, Severus was going to kill them. He took Regulus’s hand again. “Hold on tight, I’m going to apparate now.”</p>
<p>Regulus flinched away. “Where are we going?”</p>
<p>It was an issue Severus had already given considerable thought. “Well, we can’t go to the Potters since your parents are there. And we can’t go to the Lupins, since Remus has far too much to lose if they start questioning him. Your cousin Andy will be far too obvious a choice. My family is naturally out of the question. Ergo: prepare to meet the Evanses. It is a good thing your parents never expect much of muggles.”</p>
<p>He turned slightly, and whirled them away to a very familiar, and fortunately empty, park. They each sat on a swing, in silence, and waited for Regulus to talk.</p>
<p>“It wasn’t as bad as it looks,” he said, metal shrieking as he swung just a little. “Last Tuesday, Cousin Bella and her new husband came over. Showed off their marks. Everyone was so proud, and talking about me getting one, and they’d got me with my wand arm out and everything to vow to do it when I was of age before I pulled back. We’re lucky they didn’t call the Dark Lord right off. Anyways, Bella completely lost it, ranting about blood traitors, and my mother started saying it was all Sirius’s fault, and I said he was ten times the wizard any of them ever could have dreamed of and that I would run away to be with him in an instant if I could.”</p>
<p>“Merlin,” said Severus, who thought he would never in a thousand years have had the courage to say something like that to his own parents, let alone Regulus’s. He’d just vanished into the night, like a normal person. </p>
<p>“Oh, he had nothing to do with it. Stupidest thing I’ve ever done. My father was furious, said I was obviously being imperiused or some idiot thing, and they locked me in my room. Then things escalated when I spent that time packing, so they chained me to the fucking bedpost. Kreacher let me out. He’d never been explicitly ordered to do otherwise. I offered to free him so he could come with me. He said no, that the family still needed him. So, I asked him to take me to Godric’s Hollow and called the Knight Bus to the Hog’s Head, and then I asked Aberforth to lie and tell people I’d left by floo and walked up here. He’s a good sort, Aberforth. Slytherin. I knew that they’d send out search parties, but nobody else knows what Remus is, and I figured that since it was the moon either he wouldn’t be here and you might clue in that it was a place I’d know was safe, or he would be here, in which case Sirius would too and he could probably stop his boyfriend from eating me.”</p>
<p>Madman, that Black. But the plan had worked. “Can I ask… why did you say no?” Unlike Sirius, there was a great part of Regulus that was a Proper Pureblood. He loved his parents, and their lineage, and Slytherin. He wasn’t like James, who had been raised to think caring about blood status made you a shitty person. He was like Severus, who had, until the day he arrived at Hogwarts and inadvertently joined Gryffindor, just wanted to belong somewhere. Desperately. </p>
<p>“I thought about it,” Regulus admitted, after a moment. “I’m not brave like Sirius. I never would have run away if he hadn’t done it first.” The metal of the swings shrieked again. “And if I had… maybe they actually would have been proud of me then. They’re certainly not proud of the things that actually matter, the potions and the spellmaking and the creature rights stuff. Even Kreacher would have said I was a credit to my House if I took it.”</p>
<p>He was not actually making a compelling case for not becoming a deatheater, and Severus said as much. </p>
<p>“Well yeah, exactly. But I don’t want to kill people, Scales. I don’t want to fight in a war. I just want to do potions and herbology and maybe write a book about why ministry creature legislation is stupid.”</p>
<p>“The war might be coming whether or not you want it to.” It was coming. Of that much, Severus was sure. Lily said there’d been an attack on a muggleborn girl in Hufflepuff, that her whole family had been killed. James, in his letters and when he’d come to visit Lily earlier in the summer, had said he was going to join up on graduation, and Sirius was doing the same. Lily, of course, would be involved whether she wanted to be or not.</p>
<p>Reg nodded. “I know. But I don’t have to be a soldier in it. I’ll brew and study healing and make sure nobody murders Sirius while he’s busy snogging his stupid boyfriend.”</p>
<p>“That was my plan,” Severus pointed out, “only with Lily instead.” </p>
<p>And he probably wouldn’t mind killing someone, if it kept her safe. </p>
<p>Regulus dragged his feet through the gravel of the playground. “So they are dating then? I had wondered.”</p>
<p>“They will be, eventually.” </p>
<p>There was nothing in the world that Severus wanted to discuss less than the inevitability of Lily and James. Especially not with the ghost of James’s finger on his lips.</p>
<p>Regulus didn’t say anything, and they waited for a more human hour to go knock at Lily’s parents’ door. </p>
<p>Mr. Evans answered. Severus had been over only a handful of times these last few years, but he was still greeted with, “Severus, are you alright? Come in. Lily is gone to visit friends, but you are always welcome here. Can I get you anything? Do you need to use the phone?” He was bleary-eyed, and wearing a housecoat, but he still welcomed Severus without question as to why he was there at such an ungodly hour. It made Severus wonder how much, exactly, Lily told her parents.</p>
<p>Severus pushed Regulus in front of him. “Mr. Evans, this is Regulus. He’s a friend from school. His brother is Sirius, Lily’s friend.”</p>
<p>Now that Sirius lived with the Potters, he could actually come visit Lily, which he had done and been very charming all the while. </p>
<p>Even though it was just six in the morning, they were let in, and given tea. Mrs. Evans came and brought them blankets. Severus went and changed in the bathroom, and Regulus borrowed clothing from Mr. Evans, which was too big but that was alright. </p>
<p>While he was changing, Severus pulled Mr. Evans aside and explained quickly, “he’s been locked in his room for almost a week because his parents wanted him to sign up for a death cult. He’s fifteen. He needs somewhere to stay where they won’t look, and I don’t think they’ll look here. Please.”</p>
<p>“Severus,” Mr. Evans said, looking at him oddly, “any friend of Lily’s is always welcome here. For any reason. You have always been welcome to stay, if you would like.” </p>
<p>Regulus came back then, and Severus said, “I have to go warn Lily and the Lupins about what’s happening. Reg, Mr. Evans says you can stay. Don’t use magic, don’t be an idiot.”</p>
<p>Regulus wrapped the blanket tightly around himself. “Thank you, Mr. Evans.”</p>
<p>He patted Regulus gently on the arm. “You’re very welcome. You can stay until the term begins, if you’d like.”</p>
<p>Regulus looked so grateful it was almost humiliating. </p>
<p>Severus drew his wand. “When Lily gets back, tell her I said that she should set up wards to alert her if another wizard or magical creature shows up and anything else she can think of. Reg, help her with that. If I do it, someone might find it suspicious that I was warding a house where I don’t live.”</p>
<p>Mr. Evans and Regulus both nodded, and Severus turned on his heel to head for the Leaky Cauldron. </p>
<p>He didn’t actually know where the Lupins lived, was the problem. But he did know how to make a call by floo, and so it wasn’t long before his head was sticking out of a fireplace, looking at the nervous face of Lyall Lupin. He looked like Remus, but not Remus as the friendly, if a little awkward, boy Severus had been friends with. He looked like secretly angry Remus, what Severus had always thought of as the wolf but was now realizing was just human.</p>
<p>“Mr. Lupin,” Severus said, in the voice that he used to talk to Horace Slughorn, “I’m a friend of Remus’s from school. Severus Snape.”</p>
<p>“Remus is ill at the moment,” Lupin lied, with years of practice. </p>
<p>Keenly aware everyone in the Leaky Cauldron could hear him, Severus said, “I know, Sir. I understand how he gets when he’s sick. I wouldn’t be bothering you if it weren’t an emergency. Do you mind if I come over?” He seemed uncertain, so Severus added rather forcefully, “please, Mr. Lupin. Moony is one of my oldest friends.”</p>
<p>The nickname seemed to click in his mind. “Please come through, Severus.”</p>
<p>Remus’s home seemed like the sort of place he would grow up. Lots of beige and yellowish patterns. Slightly ratty sofas and shelves of muggle books. </p>
<p>Lyall Lupin shoved his wand at Severus’s throat, the second he stumbled out of the fireplace. “What do you want?”</p>
<p>Severus put his hands in the air. “I want to warn you about the Blacks. Walpurga and Orion are still caught up with the Potters – and with my parents, probably. They’ll be obstinate even though they know nothing, which gives you time. You’ll be next on the list. You need to be ready. Sirius and Lily are in your basement and they need to be gone – and Remus needs to be upstairs in bed – before they arrive.”</p>
<p>He’d gone pale. “They’re where?”</p>
<p>“Don’t worry. We all know, we’ve been doing this for more than a year. We’re all animagi. It keeps him from hurting himself. Normally it doesn’t happen in your basement, obviously, but needs must. Remus was scared to tell you. He’ll be furious with me but you need to know so they don’t startle you. When does it end, this time of year?”</p>
<p>“Early,” Lyall said, quietly. “It’s summer. Short nights. He should be done by now. I got up to move him to his bed.”</p>
<p>Sirius and Lily might already be gone then. Unless they’d fallen asleep, which Sirius was always liable to do as a dog. </p>
<p>They ended up arranging it so that Severus went around the house and, as Scales, through the same window that Lily and Sirius had. For Sirius, who couldn’t fly or cling to walls, it must have been quite a drop. He climbed carefully down the wall, and, when he was greeted by the sight of a sleeping dog, a wary crow, and a naked teenage boy, shifted back. Lily did the same. </p>
<p>“Severus–”</p>
<p>“No time to explain. You need to go home, now. They’ll explain when you get there. I promise.”</p>
<p>He hated seeing Lily look scared. “Are my parents okay?”</p>
<p>“They’re fine. Petunia too. Now go!” </p>
<p>Severus’s yelling and the crack of Lily apparating made Sirius raise his head from off of Remus. He turned back just as Lyall opened the door, and there was a moment of pure awkwardness. </p>
<p>Sirius ran a hand through his hair. “Hey, Mr. Lupin. Fancy seeing you here.” </p>
<p>Lyall looked like he was considering strangling his son’s boyfriend, but instead, he watched as Sirius conjured a blanket and lifted Remus like he was a new bride. Remus barely stirred. Severus suppressed a flash of anger that after the absolute misery of the transformation, Remus had been sleeping on the bare floor. Not even a rug or a rag. He had to write Belby again. There had to be something that could be done. </p>
<p>Together, like an honour guard, they took Remus up to bed and then waited in the living room while Lyall woke Hope. Severus hated himself. Sirius had to be unawares when his parents arrived. He didn’t have Severus’s skill at occlumency, which, even if learned from a book, was enough for these purposes. </p>
<p>Mrs. Lupin was as nervous as her husband, but friendlier. She shook Severus’s hand and told him to call her Hope, dear, please. </p>
<p>“Explain,” Lupin said, cutting off his wife’s pleasantries. “From the beginning.”</p>
<p>They were all looking at Severus. “Well,” he said, “in the second year I noticed that Remus was always gone on the full moon,” and launched into the tale.</p>
<p>They were at sixth year and the revelation that Regulus and Kingsley had known for some time when there was a pounding at the door. </p>
<p>Severus stood. “That’ll be them. I should go.”</p>
<p>Lupin shook his head. “If you hide, they’ll think you were helping him. Go upstairs to the spare room and make it look like you stayed the night. Sirius, you slept in Remus’s bed.”</p>
<p>Hope went to answer the door. Lyall ran into the basement. Sirius mussed up his hair and tried to look like he’d just woken up. Severus dashed upstairs, unpacked his trunks, mussed the sheets, and threw clothes around so it would look like he’d slept there. He was lying in bed, back in his pyjamas, with one of Hope’s muggle romances open to a random page, when the Blacks burst into his room.</p>
<p>Severus didn’t have to pretend to jump. Walpurga looked genuinely deranged. </p>
<p>Orion had his wand in his hand threateningly. “Mr. Snape. Or should I say Armand? Your parents seem to think you’ve vanished.”</p>
<p>Severus let all his many years of resentment against his parents boil to the surface. Occlumency was about controlling what was seen as much as it was preventing seeing anything. “Yes, well, it would be just like them not to notice that their own son had moved out. But I’m seventeen. If they wanted to care about where I went, they would have done so years ago. Then again, at least they noticed in the right summer. Have you finally realized that Sirius isn’t living with you?”</p>
<p>Orion took a single murderous step forward. Lyall Lupin put a hand on his shoulder. “Now, Orion. Question the boy and move on.”</p>
<p>“Muggle-lover,” Walpurga hissed. </p>
<p>“Where is Regulus?” Orion demanded. </p>
<p>Severus let his knowledge turn to dust. “I assume not Grimmauld Place. Have you tried the Potters yet? Or the Lévesques? I hear that boyfriend of Regulus’s is very handsome. He’s also friends with Barty Crouch, maybe he’s staying with him. Or what about Horace Slughorn? Regulus has long been a favourite of his.”</p>
<p>“He knows,” Walpurga hissed. “He has to.”</p>
<p>“I doubt that very much,” Sirius said, from the hallway, “since I didn’t even know Reg was missing. Now, because Mr. and Mrs. Lupin are too nice to say it, allow me. Get out, or I’ll call the aurors and tell them about every dark artifact I know you have crammed in that cesspool of a house. And I’m sure we wouldn’t want that.”</p>
<p>“I don’t believe we’ve seen every room in the house,” Walpurga hissed. “Where’s your son, Lyall?”</p>
<p>There was a tension in the air, and then Remus said, “right here, Mrs. Black. You’ll see through the open door that Regulus is not in my bedroom. Now get away from my boyfriend.” As the Blacks stepped back from Severus’s doorway, he could see across the hall to where an exhausted Remus was leaning in the doorway.</p>
<p>Sirius wrapped his arm around Remus. Their contact made it easier to hide the fact that he couldn’t stand on his own. Severus sat up in bed. “Leave,” he said.</p>
<p>And, after Walpurga poked her head into Remus’s bedroom, they did. </p>
<p>Once the crack of apparition echoed through the house, Remus dropped against his boyfriend’s shoulder. Sirius and Hope hauled him back to bed. </p>
<p>“You did good, Moony,” Sirius murmured, “you did so good.” </p>
<p>“Jesus,” Hope said, “I thought you were going to throw up on her. I thought I was going to throw up on her.” </p>
<p>“I would have paid good money to see it,” Sirius said, and kissed his boyfriend on the forehead. “Sweet dreams, Moonboy.”</p>
<p>Remus looked to already be dropping off as Sirius and Hope shut the door and met Severus in the hallway. </p>
<p>“What a legend,” Sirius said, with feeling. “Brilliant, beautiful, mad, bastard.” </p>
<p>“You’re a romantic suck,” Severus told him. </p>
<p>Hope hurries them both downstairs, so they would stop bothering Remus. Severus told Sirius what had happened, where Regulus was, and Hope explained how she’d got Remus ready while they delayed the Blacks, knowing she, as a muggle, would not be watched too closely.</p>
<p>When all was said and done, Sirius, looking at his hands, had whispered, “thank you.”</p>
<p>And Hope had said, “my son wasn’t bleeding. In fact, he was well enough to stand and speak. Thank you, Mr. Black.”</p>
<p>Sirius mumbled something under his breath, and found himself with an armful of Lupin’s muggle mother. Lyall put his hand on Severus’s shoulder. “Thank you for the warning, Severus. And I am very impressed by your ability to conjure trunks and clothing with no warning whatsoever.” At Severus’s flush, he added, “if you’re planning to go to the Potters, go ahead. But you can stay as long as you want. Whatever Remus has told you of us over the years – and I’m sure it hasn’t been flattering, since you all felt some bizarre need to obscure from me the lengths you’ve gone to protect my son – I do want him to be surrounded by people who understand and love him.”</p>
<p>Severus would never have named what he felt for Remus love, but it was something of the kind. After six years together, seeing Remus at the worst moments of his life and being seen perhaps more clearly than he always wanted, it was safe to say he felt more than he could have imagined as a scared eleven-year-old. More than Remus could have imagined too.</p>
<p>“Thank you, Mr. Lupin.”</p>
<p>“Lyall,” he said.</p>
<p>--</p>
<p>It was actually a good summer, after everything. He stayed with the Lupins, who were broadly pleasant people in spite of some severe overprotectiveness. They saw a great deal of Sirius and James, although far less of Lily and Regulus than any of them would have liked. In a way, now, they were six, the Marauders, and although Regulus wasn’t an animagus, and he wasn’t named on their map, they bestowed upon him a nickname anyways: Kitten. Finally, it was a nickname worse than Severus’s. Regulus wore it, with some irritation, like a badge of honour.</p>
<p>At the end of summer, they smuggled him into King’s Cross in polyjuice as Petunia, who had not been at all happy about this development, nor about Regulus’s presence in their house at all.</p>
<p>“He gives her cognitive dissonance,” Lily explained to Severus on one of their too-rare visits, “he’s exactly as posh as she dreams of being, but he’s also a wizard and completely pants at any non-magical skill. She doesn’t know what to think.”</p>
<p>By the time they were in the carriages to the castle, sitting four and four with MacKinnon and Shacklebolt in with, respectively, Lily, James, and Severus, and Remus, Sirius, and Regulus, his looks were returned to normal. Fortunately, there were no members of the Black family waiting for him at this station, though Walpurga had been loitering at King’s Cross. </p>
<p>As was to be expected, the Marauders – less Regulus – found themselves in McGonagall's office a week after the start of the year. Unlike usual, they hadn’t actually done anything wrong. With Lily and James as the heads – a think which Severus was getting over exactly never – it just wasn’t possible. James hadn’t even been a prefect, damn him. That had been Shacklebolt. </p>
<p>Severus, who had been in the owlery sending in a mail-order ingredients form, was the last to arrive. He found them all sitting in a semi-circle in conjured chairs. Lily’s was muggle office furniture, James’s was an armchair, Sirius’s was a throne, and Remus was sitting in a perfect copy of McGonagall’s own chair. </p>
<p>“Here,” she said, placing a letter on the desk as Severus conjured his own seat – a normal dining room chair. “Is the letter I received at the beginning of the year from Mr. Lupin’s father, informing me that you all had something very important to tell me that had to do with your own safety and underage magic. Here is the letter from Mr. Black’s mother, informing Professor Dumbledore that her son Regulus is ill, and must be sent home from Hogwarts at once. Here is the letter – from last year – from Mr. Potter’s parents, requesting that they replace Mr. and Mrs. Black as Sirius’s emergency contacts. Here is the letter from Mrs. Snape, requesting to be informed if Severus arrives at school this semester, and finally here is the letter from Mrs. Evans – muggle post – requesting information about reporting child abuse in the wizarding world. Bane of my existence though the five of you are, I rather find it beneath all of you to keep secrets, and I suspect you have not in fact kidnapped Mr. Regulus Black, as was alleged by Mr. Orion Black. So, I’ve had you all excused from this afternoon’s classes, and I expect an explanation, however long it takes. Professor Dumbledore is prepared to cover my afternoon classes if necessary. Begin.” </p>
<p>Everyone looked around, unsure as to which of these charges they should answer to first. </p>
<p>In the end, it was James who spoke. He was their leader, in a way, and had been since that day he’d dared Severus to be a good friend. </p>
<p>“Minnie,” he said, soothingly and a little joking, “we didn’t kidnap Reg. He ran away. The Evanses very generously let him spend the summer, like my parents did for Sirius. That’s all.”</p>
<p>It allowed everyone to keep their secrets, this lie, but that wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t enough. Lily jumped in. “He ran away because they were trying to force him to take the Dark Mark, Professor. They had him chained in his room. It was awful. You can’t let them send him back there. Or let the Blacks come for him here. Please.”</p>
<p>McGonagall tapped her fingers on her desk thoughtfully. “Yes, I rather thought the truth of the matter would be something like that. Which makes it interesting that Mr. Regulus Black, when presented with the same information by his head of house this morning, denied all knowledge of the event and told us he’d spent the summer in muggle London.”</p>
<p>Oh, Reg. Loyal to a fault, but not the best liar in the Marauders. In point of fact, probably the worst.</p>
<p>Remus said, “he’s trying to protect us, Professor. But he shouldn’t. We should be protecting him.”</p>
<p>She put her hands on the arms of her chair. “No, Mr. Lupin. Admirable as your actions have been, none of you should be protecting each other. That you felt you are unable to trust us with information critical to your safety is our mistake, and I’m sorry. Particularly to you, Mr. Black, and you, Mr. Snape. It shouldn’t have come to this.”</p>
<p>Sirius was uncharacteristically quiet. Lily said, “Professor… what’s going to happen now?”</p>
<p>“It is my duty as a professor to see all of you safe,” she said, solemnly, “but I have no control over wizarding law. Orion and Walpurga remain Regulus’s guardians. Mr. Black, Mr. Snape – you’re both of age, and your change in living circumstances has been updated in the school records. I will do all I can to see the same for Regulus in time. I see hope for convincing Orion and Walpurga to allow Regulus to remain until the end of the year.”</p>
<p>“Bullshit,” Severus said, finding his courage in anger. He made a fist so tightly his nails dug into his hands. “You won’t do all you can for Regulus. He isn’t even in your house, and you didn’t do all you could for Sirius or for me. There’s no way you didn’t know. I knew in four months and I was eleven. You have no idea what’s going on under your nose. Half the upper year Slytherins are death eaters; Slughorn does nothing. McKinnon and Lily are harassed in the halls; Slughorn sees it and does nothing because the kids doing it are rich. Slughorn doesn’t even know anything about potions. I would be a better professor than he is! So would Regulus. And Lily, come to that, and I taught her everything she knows. No offence, Lils.” </p>
<p>“None taken,” she said automatically, into the silence that followed Severus’s outburst. </p>
<p>It was a powerful silence, the sort that made you want to fill it with anything, anything at all. So in some ways it wasn’t a surprise at all when Remus burst out, “they all know I’m a werewolf.”</p>
<p>There was another long silence before McGonagall gritted out, “How. Long.”</p>
<p>“Years,” Remus said, effusively. “I didn’t tell them, they worked it out. Lily, Regulus and Kingsley even did it on their own. James and Sirius had Severus’s help.”</p>
<p>She zeroed in on Severus. “You were applying to work for Damocles Belby, weren’t you? Horace told me about it.”</p>
<p>He held his head high. “Yes, mam.”</p>
<p>“You’ve been blessed, Mr. Lupin, with very loyal friends.” Oh she had no idea. “Was that what your father wanted me to know?”</p>
<p>“No,” Lily said, “I imagine his father wanted you to know that I’m an unregistered animagus.”</p>
<p>Well she certainly had an idea now. Everyone started talking at once, and trying to explain, and McGonagall looked vaguely nauseous, and before Severus fully knew what was happening, all the chairs had been vanished except for Lily’s, which now contained Remus and had been rolled over beside McGonagall.</p>
<p>There, in the center of the office, they all changed one by one and McGonagall sank further and further into her chair. Normally she was angry about this sort of thing, when she worried about students, but apparently four illegal animagi had completely broken her. James went first, and pranced like a horse in the circus. Sirius tried to lick McGonagall and successfully licked Remus. Lily flew to sit on the edge of her desk, and Severus, last of all, changed to as many colours and patterns as he had worked out. Unlike a real Chameleon, he could change into almost anything he’d done before, if he concentrated hard enough. </p>
<p>When they were done, McGonagall asked, “if I were to find the appropriate opportunities for the four of you to register, would you do so?”</p>
<p>“No,” Sirius said, before the rest of them could say yes. “Not all of us, not at school. Someone would start to wonder why Moony hadn’t.”</p>
<p>It was a really good point, actually, and surprisingly forward-thinking for Sirius. But of course, Remus was always the exception when it came to him. “Very well,” she agreed. “Suppose two of you register now, and two of you after graduation. Is that fair?”</p>
<p>In the end, they registered Lily and James, and let Sirius and Severus keep their secrets. As they were all leaving her office, McGonagall called out, </p>
<p>“Mr. Snape – never in all my years of teaching have I seen such disrespect. Twenty points to Gryffindor for telling an old witch what she needs to hear.”</p>
<p>“Oh don’t worry,” Sirius said, cheerily, “you’re not that old. I’m sure in a couple decades, you’ll still be teaching and have a bunch of redheaded second generation Marauders showing you a new meaning of trouble.”</p>
<p>“Why would I be the one with kids?” Lily demanded, and they all devolved into bickering and joking about Remus’s childbearing potential as they walked back to the Common Room.</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>Overnight, James and Lily became Hogwarts’s most notable figures. They were already Head Boy and Girl, but now they were two of the youngest people ever to become registered animagi, and, in James’s case, McGonagall’s personal protégée. He’d always been good at transfiguration, but now she knew exactly how good, since he’d essentially carried Lily and Severus through the process with sheer force of will. Severus gave it six months before he agreed to go for a mastery in addition to his and Sirius’s plans to be aurors. Lily, who was trying to decide between Magical Law (Regulus’s experience had deeply impacted her) and charms, seemed to be receiving similar pressure from Flitwick. </p>
<p>In addition to all this, their celebrity only compounded when, in a surprise to nobody, Lily and James finally, finally, went to Hogsmede together. Severus quashed his jealousy by spending the day in the library, when the whole castle was empty. Belby had written him back to accept him, pending two things. One was his NEWTs, which Severus wasn’t worried about. The other was an explanation of why, exactly, he was interested, and that was proving somewhat more difficult. </p>
<p>By the time Remus and Sirius got back from Hogsmede and came to fetch him for dinner, the paper read:</p>
<p>1)	Good at potions <br/>2)	Lycanthropy bad<br/>3)	Current system bullshit </p>
<p>Sirius snatched it off the desk in front of him, and, while Severus was still grabbing for it, passed it off to Remus. </p>
<p>“Well, you aren’t wrong,” Remus said, “but I’m not sure it’s going to get you hired for anything much.”</p>
<p>Sirius just grinned and grabbed both of them with an arm around the shoulders. “Come on now, boys. Let’s go and find out if Prongs and Nevermore are going to quit snogging in time to make it to dinner.”</p>
<p>As it resolved, they didn’t. </p>
<p>--</p>
<p>Their dating went almost offensively well. Much better than Remus and Sirius’s had begun, which, much like the two of them, had involved a great deal of bickering and miscommunication and all of Remus’s angst. James and Lily were sweet, and obnoxiously happy. Severus found it unbearable to spend any time with them at all, to the point where he began sitting with McKinnon – please, call me Marlene – and Shacklebolt in all their shared classes except potions, where he kept Lily. </p>
<p>In Defence, where he sat with Shacklebolt, they were talking about the Patronus Charm. </p>
<p>Professor Kim, a rail-thin woman with thick square glasses and a slight accent, tapped her muggle measuring stick on the board. Apparently, she had been given one by students to stop her from using her wand and accidentally transforming it into things. This had happened three times in her first two weeks. </p>
<p>“Patronus. Charm. You’ve all heard of it, but not all of you can cast it, and I imagine few, if any of you can cast it corporeally. If you want Os, or even Es on your NEWTs, then that’s something you should seriously consider. It’s a powerful demonstration of defensive magic, and one that shows your examiner your strength of spirit and will. Now, normally I encourage you to sit apart from your friends, but this week, I want you to work in pairs – or groups of three – with someone you trust. If your friends aren’t in this class, come see me, and we’ll find alternate arrangements. Privately or together, I want you to come up with a list of positive memories and try casting with each of them. Cast privacy charms at your discretion, but make sure you can hear me. Now, the wand movement and the words of the charm are, of course, like this: expecto patronum!”</p>
<p>A swan erupted from the tip of her wand, flew around the room, and was gone. “Begin!”</p>
<p>James and Lily were all over each other the second the instructions were given. Severus looked down at his desk. Although all five of the original marauders were in this class, he had no more desire to partner with Sirius and Remus than he did with Lily and James. They’d be less sappy, sure, but equally painful. Instead of being jealous of a specific party, he was jealous of the fact of their happiness. Kingsley’s chair slid back as he got up to track down his girlfriend.  </p>
<p>Well, he could go through his memories on his own. He was an occlumens. That was his gift. </p>
<p>A gentle hand came down on his shoulder. “Scales,” Remus said, gently, “would you mind partnering with me for this?”</p>
<p>Severus turned to face him so he could raise an eyebrow. “With you and your boyfriend?”</p>
<p>“No, with me.”</p>
<p>Indeed, there was Sirius throwing an arm around Lily and James both. “I never thought I would see the day when Sirius was a more tolerant man than I.”</p>
<p>Remus snorted as he sat in Kingsley’s chair. “Sirius has always been a more tolerant man than you. But in this instance he’s also a luckier one. Lily and James won’t flirt as much with him there.”</p>
<p>Severus wanted to ask why, but Remus had begun casting the appropriate privacy charms – including one of Severus’s recent invention to make lip reading more difficult – and it seemed rude to interrupt. </p>
<p>When he was done, he turned back to Severus and said, “I’ve been able to cast a corporeal patronus since the middle of last year.” It was sometimes easy to forget that quiet, careful Remus was, in some areas, the best of them. He didn’t have a single shining gift like Severus’s potions or James’s transfiguration, but he was very, very good at some things, and, for a dark creature, surprisingly rooted in the light. </p>
<p>“Congratulations,” Severus offered, “but that still doesn’t explain why you’re partnered with me instead of your boyfriend.”</p>
<p>“Because,” Remus said, rather patiently, “Patroni often reflect romantic interest.” Oh Merlin. “And, last I checked, my corporeal patronus was Sirius’s animagus form. I would rather not sit there and wait to see if his matched.”</p>
<p>“Would a match be his being the same, or his being a wolf?”</p>
<p>Remus flushed. “That’s another reason I’m not paired with Sirius.”</p>
<p>Yes, it would be. “Well I’ve never done it, so I suppose you can sit here and suffer with me.”</p>
<p>They came up with a list of good memories, successful pranks, Hogsmede days, and more serious things like their first shared Full Moon and Severus’s first transformation. None of it worked. The full moon was close, but not quite right, producing a great white cloud of light that looked vaguely as if it had legs. </p>
<p>“You know,” Remus said, after a minute, “it doesn’t have to be something that was happy in the moment. It can be happy after the fact. Mine is the day you told me you’d figured it out.”</p>
<p>Severus remembered it well. “You cried for hours.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, well, looking back on it, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. That evening, after everyone else had gone to bed, I went down to the common room to cry some more, and James came and found me and told me that as long as I wasn’t a real git like Warrington I was alright in his book.” That was such a James way of putting it. “He said that there’s no such thing as being dark, only such a thing a choosing the dark.” And that was surprising insight from a twelve-year-old.</p>
<p>Severus lifted his wand again, and thought of the moments after his sorting. At the time they’d been stressful, and scary, and had made him want to throw up. But now he knew what that had brought him. All of this. He thought of Lily’s hand squeezing his. </p>
<p>“That was stupid, Sev,” she’d said, “but also pretty brave.”</p>
<p>James had said, “absolutely brilliant.”</p>
<p>Severus said, “expecto patronum!” and watched in vague horror as his doe trotted over to where James’s stag and Sirius’s dog – huh, guess that was what a match was – were playing. As he watched, Lily waved her wand, lips moving in an incantation that was inaudible outside the bubble of their muffliato. A second doe leapt forth to join them.</p>
<p>“Scales,” Remus called, but his ears were rushing and he felt terrible. The doe vanished. </p>
<p>“Excuse me,” Severus said, and ran.</p>
<p>--</p>
<p>The truth was that any of the Marauders could have found him fairly easily, even without the map, which Severus discovered in his pocket when he got to the top of the astronomy tower. He’d had to break in, since it was forbidden when classes weren’t on, but that was hardly difficult. The point was: they all knew the castle like the back of their hands, and if they looked, they could have found him. </p>
<p>That was why it was something of a surprise when Severus heard footsteps half an hour later and looked up to see not any of them, but instead Professor Dumbledore, looking over his half-moon glasses with bemusement and relief. </p>
<p>“You’ll be unsurprised to know, Mr. Snape, that you’ve caused something of stir among your fellow students.”</p>
<p>They were all such relentless gossips. It was all in good fun until it was your secrets. “So, the whole school knows I’m a hopeless fool then?”</p>
<p>“I wouldn’t say that. Professor Kim was very distraught to have lost the finest potioneer Hogwarts has produced in my tenure as Headmaster.” He flicked his wand and the door closed behind them as he sat beside Severus. His robes were emerald green with tiny daisies embroidered all over them.</p>
<p>“I’m not even the top potions student in my year.”</p>
<p>Dumbledore’s tone was calm and considered. “Horace is not always the most objective observer of these things. Damocles Belby certainly seems to think highly of you. He says your observations on how his potions needed the sort of muscle-soothing components used in recovery for sporting injuries to ease the transformation was both inspired and helpful for the medical outcomes of werewolves in preliminary trials.”</p>
<p>Severus felt suddenly sick. “He actually tested my ideas on people?” Of course he did, stupid question. “Why were you talking with Belby about my ideas anyways? Sir.”</p>
<p>He ignored Severus’s disrespect. “Damocles wrote to me to inquire about where you were getting your information about werewolves, and to ask for references pending your apprenticeship.”</p>
<p>His stomach fell out. “What did you tell him?”</p>
<p>“The truth, of course. That you’re generally regarded by your professors as a dedicated and highly observant student who wishes to minimize the suffering of others, even those you don’t like. That Horace has never properly appreciated your skills, but Professor Gatineau says that your alchemy indicates a master’s comprehension of the rules of brewing, while Professor Sprout believes that you demonstrate an innate skill with the magical implications and uses of herbology. And, naturally, that you were trained by the noted werewolf expert Tyrian Wilkinson.”</p>
<p>Even all these years later, Severus still felt a surge of anger. “He was an idiot.”</p>
<p>Dumbledore didn’t acknowledge this rudeness any more than he had the last. “It was you and Miss Evans who were the brains behind that particular act of protest, were you not? I had suspected Mr. Lupin or perhaps Mr. Black, but with Minerva’s new information, I revised my opinion.” Without waiting for an answer, he abruptly changed tack. “Ah, I believe I’ve forgotten something. Expecto patronum.”</p>
<p>To Severus’s bafflement, an extraordinary white phoenix burst forth from his wand. “Please inform Prudence that her missing student has been found.”</p>
<p>“Professor Kim’s first name is Prudence?” And, apparently, you can use patroni to send messages. Huh.</p>
<p>“It’s her preferred name from anglophones, I believe. Certainly, it’s the name she requested the staff call her and I have never done otherwise.”</p>
<p>Fair enough, really. They sat in silence for a time before Dumbledore said, “my patronus changed in 1945. Prior to that, it was a mountain lion.”</p>
<p>Of course it was. Dumbledore was shamefully Gryffindor. “What does this have to do with me?”</p>
<p>“When I was a little older than you are now, I fell in love with a brilliant young wizard. I used the memories of that to cast a patronus for many years. Contrary to the lion of Gryffindor house, the mountain lion is a solitary animal. Power. Elegance. Ambition. Although he was unable to cast a patronus, I believe it was for him.”</p>
<p>Severus was morbidly curious, if still confused. But Dumbledore, he supposed, had always been a bit mad.  “What happened to him?”</p>
<p>“Ah,” Dumbledore said, “I suspect you know the answer, if not the right person. I defeated him in a duel.”</p>
<p>Merlin’s wrinkly balls. “You’re joking.”</p>
<p>“I assure you I am not. I realized afterwards that I had not truly possessed a self – in the patronus sense, at least – separate from him until I defeated him. It was not a particularly pleasant revelation. So you see, Severus, I have some sense of what it would be like to have people see a little too deep into your soul.”</p>
<p>It really wasn’t the same at all. “I didn’t need a revelation. I’ve been in love with Lily since forever.”</p>
<p>“And Mr. Potter?” The memory of James’s finger ghosted over Severus’s lips. “In general, the Headmaster’s job does not include relationship counselling, although I will point out that you did not find one match to your patronus, today. You found two. Certainly, they were all representations of Mr. Potter’s animagus form, but one might extrapolate thereby that the power and elegance of the stag is the trait that best suits the three of you together. Certainly, I think James might lack the seriousness of the raven, and both of them the patience and self-discipline of the chameleon.”</p>
<p>As the muggles would say: Jesus fucking Christ. “I can’t believe this is happening.”</p>
<p>Professor Dumbledore stood, dusting himself off primly. “It’s good that you learn now that Professors are people too, Severus. If you aren’t careful, you may find yourself in Horace Slughorn’s office in a few years.”</p>
<p>Oh, absolutely not. “Get Regulus. He’s a Slytherin, and he has more patience for idiots than I do.”</p>
<p>Dumbledore smiled. “Perhaps, I will, Mr. Snape. You could do many things beyond the walls of this castle. For the moment, I suggest you seek out some of your friends. I believe Miss Evans in particular was concerned.”</p>
<p>Sometimes, with Dumbledore, it was better not to ask how he knew.</p>
<p>--</p>
<p>Severus ate in the kitchen, and used the map to avoid the rest of the Marauders until it was gone midnight, and he was only hiding from Filch. Everyone in Gryffindor had gone to bed except for the footprints labeled, elegantly, ‘Lily Evans’ and ‘James Potter’. </p>
<p>Once more unto the breach, as she would say. He told the portrait, “kingfisher” and slipped through the door into the common room.</p>
<p>They were sitting in front of the fire, Lily curled in a blanket. It looked like she’d been crying. The pangs of guilt were sharp and instant. </p>
<p>“Hey, Scales,” James said, as if he was talking to a small child who’d been upset. “Do you mind joining us for a bit?”</p>
<p>Lily duplicated her blanket and wrapped it around Severus’s shoulders. This late in the semester, cold got into your bones if you wandered the castle too long without a cloak like Severus had done. </p>
<p>“Thank you.”</p>
<p>They were quiet for a while, the crackling of the flames and the noises of a few insomniacs and snorers emanating from the dorms. </p>
<p>James spoke, calm and authoritative in the way that had always made him their leader. “Lily and I have been talking, about what we want, and about what we think you want. I told her you were in love with her at least as long as I was. That you never used to tease me about it the way Moony and Padfoot did. She told me that if that were the case, your patronus would have been a raven, not a doe.”</p>
<p>Severus had been aware, consciously, that he loved James for less than twelve hours. He didn’t say anything.</p>
<p>Lily, voice cracking a little, said, “whatever you want, you can have. If that’s for you to be with James too, then you and I will still be friends.”</p>
<p>James, helpfully, added, “and we were friends for a long time knowing we were both in love with Lily. If you’re with her too, I don’t see why that has to be any different.”</p>
<p>This was awful. They were awful. “Can I expect Remus and Sirius jumping out of the invisibility cloak any time now?”</p>
<p>They exchanged a look before James said, “we’re not joking. We wouldn’t joke about this.”</p>
<p>Severus wanted to believe him. Lily put her hand on his knee. “C’mon Sev, you’re a Gryffindor. Leap of faith.”</p>
<p><em>I want to be with my friend,</em> he’d told the Sorting Hat, all those years ago. </p>
<p>“Both,” Severus said, “I love you both.” and was still completely unprepared for when Lily kissed him.</p>
<p>--</p>
<p>
  <em>Dear Mr. Belby,</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I thought about writing an essay to try and answer your question, but the truth is it doesn’t merit one. Mitigating the effects of lycanthropy will save lives, and will immeasurably improve those of our most abused citizens. No more needs to be said on the subject. I think the kind of man who looks at the problem everyone has tried to spend generations murdering out of wizarding Britain and says ‘I can treat this’ is the kind of man I want to teach me to do it. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Sincerely, </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Severus Snape.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>--</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Mr. Snape, </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Attached is the contract for the commencement of your apprenticeship. There is no room in my office for those who do not have the ability to be blunt and accurate when necessary. Your letter proved that you most certainly do.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Regards, </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Damocles Belby</em>
</p>
<p>--<br/>In the end, all of the second-generation Marauders inherited James’s unruly hair, even those who were biologically Severus’s, and Neville, who wasn’t actually biologically descended from any of them, but seemed to manage a relentless sort of hat-hair. But they did befriend a lot of Weasleys so Sirius’s predictions about McGonagall being terrorized by redheads did come true, in a roundabout sort of way. Sirius never let Lily forget about that, but, all these years later, Severus suspected that she didn’t really mind his teasing.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Ahh so many things to say<br/>1) BWL Neville, since no Pettigrew in this AU. <br/>2) OCs. Regulus’s roommate Armand (who is secretly a French Canadian halfblood, I think) and Prudence Kim (who I like to imagine is an OoTP member who is doing this as a favour).<br/>3) Remus was a prefect in canon to try and keep James and Sirius in line. Since Snape and Lily do that already in this AU, Kingsley was that year’s Gryffindor prefect, although James still got to be head boy <br/>4) Dumbledore is /definitely/ prepping Severus to be recruited for the Order in this fic. I don’t think him and Sirius ever reveal their animagus forms and do a lot of spying for the order over the next few years.</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I fully maintain that 1) James Potter would have befriended any combination of weirdos and rejects living with him (Kingsley is neither, and doesn’t count) 2) That Severus, at age 11, would eventually have given in to aforementioned people-collecting and 3) Lily could have figured out that Remus was a werewolf all on her own.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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